First of all, THANK YOU to everyone who made Enspire possible: the volunteers, TESC board, Dean's Office, ESS, corporate sponsors, teachers, eighth graders, judges, faculty, and of course, the incredible outreach committee! The event was VERY successful!!! I'll go into more of this later, I want to tell you about the days leading up to Enspire first.
I apologize for being MIA lately - it's been crazy with midterms and then also getting ready for the event. There were sooo many little things we had to take care of before and during the event. So, on Sunday (2/17), the entire TESC board along with a bunch of committee members went on a huge Costco run! (see pic below- we were all meeting in front of EBU1 to drive together)
The outreach committee had a huge list: 700 water bottles, granola bars, fruit juice, muffins, croissants, orange juice, coffee, design competition materials, etc. Luckily, Stefanie has a huge truck, so we were able to transport all the drinks with no problem (see pics from our Costco run below)
On Monday (2/18), the outreach team met around 9 am to put together a bunch of stuff for Enspire: goodie bags (all 350 of them!), design competition materials, and prizes for the winners of the design competition. It probably took us 4 hours to put everything together. We had a great line going too - one person doing department flyers, another doing LED flashlights, stickers, frisbee, and other goodies. And EACH student got all these goodies!
Tuesday evening, we ran a volunteer workshop in CSE 1202 around 7:30 pm. It was an informal event where we discussed the details for Enspire and answered any questions anyone had. We also gave t-shirts to anyone who came. We had a great turnout! I was surprised at the number of volunteers who came. We even had new sign-ups as well! After the workshop, a few of us came back to the board room to finish up last minute tasks. We especially had to put together all the volunteer packages. We printed out so many different types of sheets - I bet the volunteers were a little overwhelmed when they saw all the information that was available to them. I can't blame them though, but we wanted to make sure they had everything they needed. Me, Stefanie, and Michael T. ended up staying until 1 am!!! LOL, we had this funny moment too, at one point we ALL started laughing hysterically, AND for no reason! Heehee, I guess we all went a little crazy at that point and decided we needed to go home and some rest.
The next morning we met up around 7:30 am. I actually got there a little late because I had slept longer than I anticipated. Things were pretty hectic on the get-go. We gathered up all the drinks and breakfast items to bring to PC ballrooms. Apparently there were around 30-40 volunteers
waiting around in PC already. We forgot to make the volunteer sign, so we had to get that done ASAP! I was very amazed at the amount of work that got done in so little time. All the volunteers were very hard-working and quick to get any tasks we had at the moment. On the right is a picture of the ballroom before the students arrived. At each table, a student received an Enspire t-shirt, water bottle, and a granola bar. Things ran a little late due to the rain. We had such an excellent team - especially our outreach committee and ESS! I admit, this was my first real event and I never ran one with so many participants. It was definitely a great experience. I was nervous at times, but Stefanie, Sonia, and Barbara knew exactly what to do. The students seemed like they had a great time, especially during the design competition. Their task was to build one of three structures: the taller tower, the longest bridge, or a free-choice structure. We had one group winner from each category. The students were so into the competition that they did not stop building even after the building was supposed to be over. Additionally, the judges seemed like they had a great time as well! After we announced the winners, we lead the students back to their buses. Before we knew it, the event was already over!! Seeing all the students enjoy themselves was the main reason for our event. We hope they now know a little more about engineering and what exciting career paths it can lead them to. Yay, great job everyone! We couldn't have done it without you!!
I also wanted to say that E-Week overall was a huge success! All the events turned out really, really well. E-Games was a lot of fun -- TBP took home the grand prize: the golden calculator! DECaF was great - it was sooooooo crowded in the ballroom that I could barely move around. All the recruiters seemed very happy about the turnout, but were tired from standing the whole time. Finally, Impulse was a LOT of fun! We had good food and great friends. I was happy to see so many engineers getting their groove on. We basically danced the whole night. To the TESC board, committee members, and volunteers: we did it!!!
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